BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. THE FEDERAL UNION.--For the origin of our federal constitution, see Bancroft's _History of the United States_, final edition, vol. vi., N.Y., 1886; Curtis's _History of the Constitution_, 2 vols., N.Y., 1861, new edition, vol. i., 1889; and my _Critical Period of American History_, Boston, 1888, with copious references in the bibliographical note at the end. Once more we may refer advantageously to _J.H.U. Studies_, II., v.-vi., H.C. Adams, _Taxation in the United States_, 1789-1816; VIII, i.-ii., A.W. Small, _The Beginnings of American Nationality_. See also Jameson's _Essays in the Constitutional History of the United States in the Formative Period_, 1775-1789, Boston, 1889, a very valuable book. On the progress toward union during the colonial period, see especially Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic of the United States_, Boston, 1872; also Scott's _Development of Constitutional Liberty in the English Colonies of America_, N.Y., 1882. By far the ablest and most thorough book on the government of the United States that has ever been published is Bryce's _American Commonwealth_, 2 vols., London and N.Y., 1888. No American citizen's education is properly completed until he has read the whole of it carefully. In connection therewith, the work of Tocqueville, _Democracy in America_, 2 vols., 6th ed., Boston, 1876, is interesting. The Scotchman describes and discusses the American commonwealth of to-day, the Frenchman that of sixty years ago. There is an instructive difference in the methods of the two writers, Tocqueville being inclined to draw deductions from ingenious generalizations and to explain as natural results of democracy sundry American characteristics that require a different explanation. His great work is admirably reviewed and criticised by Bryce, in the _J.H.U. Studies_, V., ix., _The Predictions of Hamilton and De Tocqueville_.